KUALA LUMPUR: The Arts, Live Festivals and Events Association (ALIFE) and Future Sound Asia (FSA) both reiterate that the unfortunate incident involving British band The 1975, which resulted in the cancellation of the recent Good Vibes Festival 2023 (GVF), was an isolated one.
"The GVF issue was an unfortunate incident involving a rogue artiste who intentionally refused to adhere to the rules and guidelines set forth by the country.
"We recognise that this event caused an unprecedented international debacle.
"However, we firmly believe that this episode is an isolated occurrence and does not reflect the essence of the festival or the industry as a whole," ALIFE president Rizal Kamal told reporters.
This follows last Friday's GVF concert which saw The 1975 frontman exhibiting indecent behaviour and speech which caused the show to be stopped and the remaining concert over the weekend to be cancelled.
"We do not accept or condone such behaviour, and Matty Healy's conduct deserves to be condemned.
"His display has left a trail of consequences for Malaysians. This incident was isolated and unforeseen, and contrary to the agreement we have with the band," said Ben Law, founder of FSA, the organiser of GVF.
ALIFE chairman Para Rajagopal said the association and FSA have speedily engaged with the authorities governing the industry in order to allay the perception that this incident would lead to foreign artistes giving Malaysia a pass for their concerts which would also affect potential economic returns.
"We have created a working team with them (the authorities) to ensure the momentum that we've built up the last couple of months after the pandemic is kept up.
"But we also have to be a lot better in screening the artistes.
"We are trying to learn from this, we are trying to improve ourselves because we are living in a very different society compared to Western society.
"It's a work in progress and we will keep updating the industry on how we are going to create this more safer environment for all the fans and the music industry.
"So the industry has to go on and move forward," he said.
During a Q&A session, FSA director of entertainment Wan Alman said that the company has engaged "legal counsel and are considering taking legal action" against The 1975.
On the matter of refunds, Wan Alman said that FSA was in the midst of working out a solution.
"As you can imagine this (incident) has dealt us a very severe blow so we are still working through the cancellation and its immediate fallout.
"However, we have reached out and talked to all our stakeholders, sponsors, partners, vendors and artistes and all of them have been very supportive.
"They all understand what we're going through. We have been updating them and with regards to the refunding mechanics, we are devising the best method to go about this and we will have an update soon on refunds," he said.